Diversity, Entrepreneurial Empowerment and Challenges related to adult education

1. Employment of marginalized citizens via
adult education and entrepreneurial
education
National Coordinator of the Nordic Adult
Education (NVL) in Denmark
June 6, 2014
Benson Honig
Teresca Cascioli Chair in Entrepreneurial Leadership
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario Canada
bhonig@mcmaster.ca

2. Entrepreneurship may provide life-changing
opportunities for persons
in marginal conditions
• Virtual world is one where prejudices against
persons with disabilities are masked and opaque
• World-wide market opportunities are now open to
everyone – a level playing field
• Entrepreneurship provides autonomy and self
efficacy
• Work can be flexible to accommodate personal
needs
• Independence and self sufficiency an important
element

3. Can Entrepreneurship be
Taught?
• Consider: Artists, musicians
• Talent is essential, but not enough
• Many ‘tricks’ can be taught
• Who is teaching? A bureaucrat? An
instructor? An entrepreneur?
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4. Entrepreneurship promotion for persons
in marginal conditions is not exactly a
‘science’
• We know little about what really ‘works’ with
entrepreneurship education, despite considerable
expenditures world-wide
• A consistent nature vs. nurture debate
• It is not the primary solution to the world’s
unemployment problem
• Entrepreneurship entails risk – risk that may be
difficult for marginalized persons to manage

5. CONCEPTUAL MODEL – The Start-up Process
Adult
Population
Business
Firm
Population
Growth
Persist
Quit
Social, Political, Economic Context
Firm
Birth
NE
Start-up Processes
? NI
?
?
NE = NASCENT
ENTREPRENEURS
NI = NASCENT
GEM INTRAPRENEURS
PSED PSED
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6. Business Population
Conception Gestation process Firm
Birth
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Educational
preparation
Work
career
entry
Disengagement,
retirement
Firm life course
Human Labor Force
1,2,3,5,6,7,8,9,10,14,
16,18,19,20,22,24
[21]
[23]
[6]
[4,11,12,13,15,17]
[26] [25]
Firm B
Job 2
Job 3
Job n
Job 1
Firm A
Firm C
[22]
Fig 4.4, pg 68, from Haltiwanger, J., L. Lynch, 7 C. Mackie
(Eds) (2007) Understanding Business Dynamics. Washington,
DC: The National Academies Press.

7. Entrepreneurship Research for the
Marginalized
• Entrepreneurship can be said to begin with
interest, that is followed by entrepreneurial
intention
• Research on intentions is done because it is
expedient, not because it is good.
• Intentions are supposed to be good indicators of
behaviour
• Factors that are relevant include gender, age,
human capital, personality, cognitive factors, self
efficacy
• We have included feasibility , desirability and
passion in our research

8. Factors impacting
entrepreneurial activity
• Perceived ability a factor
• Perceived attractiveness a factor
• Leads to passion – an important
element
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9. Learning orientation
• Both tacit and explicit knowledge
important
• Research shows more HC = higher
nascent entrepreneurship rate
• Research shows that formal education
does not advantage nascent
entrepreneurs
• Tacit knowledge and social capital
matter more
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11. Social Entrepreneurship
• One approach focuses on ability to
create positive social change
• Another examines social nature of
organization’s objectives
• A third looks at entrepreneurship to help
disadvantaged persons, including
poverty alleviation, unemployment, and
social inclusion
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12. Entrepreneurship is
embedded the social-political
environment
• Must acknowledge power laden
mechanisms people confront
• Should persons comply?
• Should persons challenge?
• Which they do is determined by their
self-identity as either belonging to a
disadvantaged group, or wanting to
belong to an advantaged group
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13. Power and entrepreneurship
• Some activities by disadvantaged
persons are more ‘acceptable’ than
others
• Normative rules can be changed with
successful challenges
• Or rules can be sidetracked – new rules
developed
• The disadvantage face demands to
comply, along with the need for reflexivity
– to make a difference.
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15. How to “win”?
• Micro-emancipation, with ongoing
interactions with field level incumbents,
and artful navigation through their
expectations
• Reflexive action induces changed
expectations
• Thus, the level of domination matters,
as well as their reaction to negative
feedback – do they submit, or fight?
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16. Research from an
Entrepreneurship Promotion
Scheme in Canada
• Disability is most frequently mental
disability: this can be ‘tricky’ for
entrepreneurship lecturers and program
designers
• Two different models
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17. Train-place
• In class or workshop training to develop
certain skills, knowledge and abilities
• Think: Incubators
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18. Place-train
• Introduces person to the vocation, and
provides training as necessary to help
person succeed
• Think: Accelerator centers
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19. How to measure
effectiveness?
• Need a control group, and a longitudinal
study
• Self confidence? Quality of life? Health?
Financial success? Independence? Self
worth? Happiness?
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20. Where do new businesses
come from?
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21. Preliminary results from our
study
• Place-train model, when coupled with a
financial incentive, led to an increase in
gestation behaviors and actual business
creation. (one program provided a one time
payment of $1500 when the busienss they
developed provided an $800 profit)
• Participants attitudes improved simply from
engaging in gestation behaviors – there was
no advantage in actually starting the business.
It is as if the attempt was sufficient to increase
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22. How many started?
• 79% of place-train group
• 44% of train-place group
• This is similar to results of vocational
rehabilitation (58% vs. 21%, Bond et al,
1997).
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23. In Sum
• While clearly not a panacea,
entrepreneurship, with the new sources
of virtual businesses, provide important
opportunities to increase the well being
of marginalized persons
• Care must be taken to ensure programs
are not taken over for political
expediancy
• THANK YOU!!
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24. 10/23/14 PSED_AOM_PDWorkshop_09Aug08 24

25. 10/23/14 PSED_AOM_PDWorkshop_09Aug08 25

26. Why care about new firms?
• Provide half of all net new job creation
• Contribution to improved sector productivity
• Major source of economic innovation
• Associated with economic growth
• Significant work career option for many
• Mechanism for immigrant social integration
• Universal route for upward social mobility
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27. • New firm creation is clearly a critical
feature of most economies!!
• What data sets might be available to
explore the important features and
causal mechanisms involved in new
firm creation?
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28. What do these data sets provide?
• Fifteen cross-sectional comparisons of exiting
firms [1,2,3,5,6,7,8, 9,10,14,16,18,19,20, 22,24]
• Seven longitudinal analysis of existing firms
[4,11,12,3,15,17,23]
• Three track labor force activities of individuals
and households [6,25,26]
• One, GEM, provides cross national comparisons
of start-up activity [22]
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29. Central Assumption:
• People start businesses, not
– Market characteristics
– Macro-economic conditions
– Regional, geographic attributes
– National R & D intensity
– Presence of opportunities
– Availability of financing
– Positive entrepreneurial climate
– Social networks
– Speeches by politicians
• Who gets involved and what do they do?
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30. Data collection procedure
• Large scale screening to locate candidate nascent
entrepreneurs
– Completed by a commercial market research firm
– Based on a representative household sample
– Captures nascent enterprises long before they are included
in business registries
• Detailed interviews to identify active nascent
entrepreneurs and gather information on what they
are doing
– Completed by U Michigan Institute for Social Research
• Follow-up interviews to determine the outcomes of
their efforts
– Completed by U Michigan Institute for Social Research
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31. Screening Items
• Are you, alone or with others, currently trying to start
a new business, including any self-employment or
selling any goods or services to others?
• Are you, alone or with others, currently trying to start
a new business or a new venture for your employer,
an effort that is part of your normal work?
• Are you, alone or with others, currently the owner of a
business you help manage, including self-employment
or selling any goods or services to
others?
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32. Define Outcome
• New Firm
– PSED I:
• Is the start-up now an operating business?
– PSED II:
• Income in 6 of past 12 months?
• Cover all monthly expenses?
• Cover owners’ salaries and wages?
• Active start-up
– PSED I
• Still in active start-up phase?
– PSED II
• Devoted more than 160 hours in past 12 months
• Expect to spend more than 80 hours in next 6 months
• A major focus of work career over the next 12 months
• Disengagement [Quit]
– PSED I
• No longer being worked on by anybody
– PSED II
• Not new firm, not active start-up
• Consider self disengaged from the business start-up
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